Help with Digitizing video8, Hi8, and VHS tapes
 

Hello,
I'm new to the forum and have found many of these threads/guides very educational. Just want to show some appreciation and respect for the work the community and moderators have put in to this site before I ask my newbie questions! :wink2:

My goal is to digitize several video8, Hi8, and a few VHS tapes with as little quality loss as I can on my current gear. I want to have archives of the videos and also have the ability to put together a little compilation video of special moments as well. Probably using something basic like windows movie maker.

Gear:
Win10 Computer
Elgato video capture card (Elgato)
Sony CCD-TR28
Sony DCR-TRV310
LinksTek PCIE FireWire Card (Card)

My current approach is hooking up one of the handycams to the elgato and capturing with virtualdub. I'm eager to hear any criticisms of this method and would like to know if anything else would be more optimal for little or no extra cost.

I would also like some guidance on which compressions methods to use at which stages in this process. And if certain codecs are needed for download, please provide links.

tldr; Can someone explain how to capture my analog tapes, store the, and have them available for basic editing? All as losslessly as possible.

Thanks in advance! I've already spent so much time trying to figure all of this out, so any help would be very much appreciated. :)

Edit: Also I read that the digitalfaq business started in Dallas. Any chance y'all are still around that area?